The Moth Women
by Ember A. Keelty
Summary: You're not getting rid of me that easily, sweetheart.  You can't, I'm inside of you.'  SuzieGwen, takes place after They Keep Killing Suzie.


The air itself was black. That was the only way Gwen could account for the impenetrable darkness that surrounded her. There was nothing else: no ground beneath her feet, no draft against her bared skin, nothing but the still, dead dark. She was floating in it, drowning in it. It flowed into her gaping mouth and trickled down her throat. It filled her stomach and her lungs and seeped into her blood. Already it was in her head. She could feel it there, crowding out the fear and the desperation and the memories of two seconds, two hours, two lifetimes ago, when she lay next to Rhys with her pulse slowing and her mind drifting, drifting away from guilt and shame and into grateful oblivion.

Gwen knew where she was. She had been here once before, and had known that she would eventually have to return. But this seemed too sudden and too soon. _Not yet_, she thought as the darkness overtook her. _Not yet, not yet, not–_

There was a light in the distance.

Without apparently moving, without even deciding to move, Gwen drifted toward the glow. As she got closer, she could make out the form of a woman lying as though upon a surgical table. Her hands were crossed over her chest, her folded arms covering her naked breasts. A soft white light emanated from every inch of her gold-tinted skin and cast a halo around the thick, tangled mess of brown curls that framed her face. Gwen knew who it was, even before she was near enough to discern any really distinguishing features. There was only one person it could be. She wanted to pull away, to fly off in the opposite direction and vanish into the night. But the presence of another soul in the dark drew her inescapably, like water seeking its own, and before she quite knew what had happened she was looking down into the face of Suzie Costello.

She appeared calm but not serene, as though she were sleeping through a mildly unpleasant dream. Her eyes were shut, her lips pressed together tightly and twisted into a slight grimace. Lying as she now was, naked and vulnerable and shrouded in darkness but for her own feeble light, she looked more than ever as Suzie had always seemed to Gwen in spite of all her associations with cruelty and death: frightened, alone, and horribly, horribly lost. Suddenly overcome with pity, Gwen reached out to her and brushed her face.

Suzie's eyes shot open at her touch, and within an instant their dark, haunted stare fixed itself on the other woman. "I've been waiting for you, Gwen Cooper," she murmured softly.

Gwen gasped and woke with a jolt.

_"Gwen? What's wrong?" Rhys had woken up to the sound of her crying. He sat up beside her and took her hands in his._

_"It's nothing," she told him. "Just a bad dream. Go back to sleep."_

_"Need to talk about it?" He leaned in to kiss the tears from her face, but she fell away from him and laid her head back on her pillow._

_"It was about my job," she whispered, then turned onto her side so as not to have to look at him._

_"Fine then," Rhys groaned as he lay back down. "I'd say something pithy if only I weren't so tired, mind you."_

_Moments later, he was snoring loudly. Gwen was glad; it kept her awake for the rest of the night._

"I'm sorry," Gwen told her. "I'm so sorry. I wish there were a way that both of us could–"

"Not as much as I do," Suzie said. They were hand-in-hand now, gripping each other with white knuckles, nails digging into skin.

"How am I even here?" Gwen asked. "I'm not dead. I thought I was last night, but then I found out I was only asleep."

"You're connected to me, Gwen. You were from the moment you put on my glove."

"But Tosh and Ianto destroyed it. They shot it to pieces. And then when Jack killed you–"

"–you came back to life. _Think_, Gwen. Use your bloody brain. If the link were truly severed, not just reversed, how could anything that happened to me have affected you at all?" One of her hands let go of one of Gwen's, and she laid it instead on the other woman's cheek. "You aren't getting rid of me that easily, sweetheart. You can't; I'm inside of you."

"But how do I know this is real?" Gwen asked. "How do I know it isn't just a dream?"

"You don't have to," Suzie told her. "_I _know it's real, and that's all that matters to me." She moved closer until their bodies were pressed together and their faces were near enough that Gwen could see the sheen of latent tears in the other woman's eyes. "Alone in the dark for ages and ages, with that _thing_ breathing down my back, and eternity stretching out before me, so black, so bleak– " The words came flowing out of her mouth in a swift, hurried stream that stopped only when her voice caught in her throat. " I was blind until I saw you," she continued once she'd managed to force back the tears. "You shine so brightly, Gwen Cooper." And then she kissed her – greedily, as though she could draw life from her lips.

_"Your coffee, Miss Cooper," Ianto said, setting the mug down on her desk._

_The wafting aroma of sweet spices coaxed Gwen into lifting her head from her arms. She smiled warmly at the Torchwood secretary. "Bless you, Ianto. You're a life-saver."_

_"That's your seventh cup, you know."_

_"Mm?" She took a sip and basked in the warmth of the dark, bittersweet liquid as it traveled down her throat. "Is it really? I thought it was only my sixth."_

_"Either way, you've soundly beaten last night's record. You may want to call it a night if you ever wish to sleep again."_

_Gwen took another, longer draw of her coffee. "And if I don't?" she asked._

"I'm sorry I was away so long," Gwen said.

"Were you? I didn't notice."

"I tried to stay awake."

"I figured you would. How long did you last?"

"Two nights."

"Is that all? You must not hate me as much as I thought you did."

"I don't hate you at all."

"Kiss me," Suzie demanded suddenly. Gwen was surprised at how unhesitatingly she obeyed. Surrounded by darkness, they clung to each other's lips, drinking light from each other's mouths.

"Right," Gwen said when they came up for air. She now felt strangely determined to take the initiative. "Let's continue where we left off."

The sex that they shared then had little to do with love and even less to do with lust. It was simply the inevitable end result of a driving need to be close, closer, closer still, until, at last, they were inside of each other.

_Gwen felt drained all the time now. No amount of Ianto's coffee could either wake her or warm her. She could sense the darkness lurking behind her own eyes, and when she closed them…_

_"Gwen, what the Hell is wrong with you?" Owen shouted at her when the priceless alien artifact she had been examining slipped from her hands and broke in two on the floor._

_"I can put it back together!" she assured him quickly. "Probably," she added under her breath._

_Jack pulled her aside before she left work that evening. "You aren't all right," he stated bluntly._

_She shrugged, dislodging his hand from her shoulder with the motion. "I'll get used to it," she said. "It's just… difficult… right now."_

_"Yeah? Get used to what?"_

_"You have your secrets, Jack," Gwen told him. "I have mine. It's what this place does."_

_He let her go, but she knew that he would ask her again some other day. When he did, she might even tell him. _ But not yet_, she thought, _not just now

"You're killing me again," Gwen said. There was only a hint of accusation in her voice.

Suzie shook her head. "It isn't me this time. I don't think you're dying, either. Not quite."

"I don't believe you."

"Why not? Have I ever lied to you?" At first this seemed to Gwen like a ridiculous question. It was not until she opened her mouth to answer that she realized she had no retort. Suzie smiled at her gaping. "You see? I 'tell the truth but tell it slant.'"

For one long moment they held each other in complete silence.

"Maybe this is just Hell," Gwen said. "Maybe there's something better somewhere else."

"Even if there is, do you really think that you'll go there?"

Silence again.

"How do I get free of you?" Gwen asked at last.

"To start with, you'd have to leave Torchwood. Leave it far, far behind, and never look back."

She nearly broke down then. "But I can't _do_ that," she almost sobbed.

"I know," Suzie said, and kissed the top of Gwen's head, breathing deeply the scent of her hair as she did so. "And that's why you'll always be mine."


End file.
